It's been a while since I last posted - I think I've been intimidated by the massive stack of worthy-looking books waiting for me to read them!
So, after a brief excursion into the land of frivolity (involving Jasper Fforde's newest - Shades of Grey - very good), I returned to the slightly more sensible world of my list.
A Fine Balance is set in India in the mid-70s, in a time of political turmoil, with the unlikely meeting of Dina, a lonely widowed woman, two tailors, living on the edge of destitution, and a student who comes to rent a room from Dina. There is a lot of detail provided on the political and economic landscape, and the novel follows these four characters through the uncertain times.
AFB was nominated for the Booker Prize and is widely acclaimed. But it is such hard work to read. I finished it, but only because I knew I had to in order to write about it! I found it to be overly complex in terms of the "coincidences" which linked the characters together, not particularly believably. The narrative devices used were also quite predictable - the innocents arriving in the city, trusting the people they meet and being let down; the way that each time it seemed as though the plot was about to resolve positively, something dreadful happened; the way that the tailors constantly believed naively in people with authority despite the number of times they had been let down.
It is a clever book, I think, but I couldn't warm to it - as my friend said, "I'll keep it on the shelf to look worthy, but otherwise - pah!". I can't think of a better summary!
